On the Docket How-To

On the Docket allows faculty, staff, and students to submit short announcements for distribution via email to targeted audiences. Announcements may also appear on Commons sites as well as the Community Boards. On the Docket is distributed in digest form, and deliveries are scheduled once a day at 6:00AM. Below are instructions/information related to the On the Docket interface. For additional questions, please contact ITS Web at noticesadmin@law.upenn.edu.

Submitting a New Announcement

When you submit your announcement for distribution, a confirmation email is sent to this address. This address will NOT appear on the announcement itself.

Send Announcement To

Choose your audience.

Display on Penn Law Commons

Select to have your announcement appear on the Commons.

From Name/Organization

If you are submitting the announcement on behalf of an organization or third party, enter that here. Otherwise, enter your name.

Subject

Enter a short and descriptive summary of the announcement, similar to a subject line in an email.

Delivery Dates

Select the dates/times that you would like your announcement to be delivered. Dates must be entered in the mm/dd/yyyy format. The default date/time is the nearest delivery possible. Please limit to a total of 3 delivery dates/times per notice.

Please be brief and informative. You will be limited to 700 characters and can use the counter to keep track.

You will also have the option to display your announcement on the Community Boards located throughout the Law School. Be sure to check the box ‘Display announcement on the Community Board’ and enter both an abbreviated subject and text for your announcement.

When you have finished filling in the required fields, you have two options: ‘Attach Files Related to the Notice’ OR ’ Skip File Attachment to Review your Announcement’. Clicking on ‘Skip File Attachment/Review My Announcement’ will take you to the ‘Review/Submit Your Announcement’ page, while clicking on ‘Attach Files Related to this Announcement’ will take you to the ‘Attach Files Related to this Announcement’ page.

Note: All announcements must be submitted by noon on Friday for Monday announcements

Attaching Files Related to Your Announcement

You may attach one or more files related to your announcement on this page. The files you attach here will be accessible via a link that is automatically provided on your announcement, as ‘Related File(s)’. There is no limit on the number of files that you can attach. However, each file can have a maximum size of 1MB, and cannot be executable (i.e. cannot have extensions such as .exe, .bat, etc.). Files can be attached one at a time, by using the form provided on the page.

To attach a file:

Click the ‘Browse’ button to locate the file on your computer

Enter a File Description — this will serve as the link name to your file (e.g. Event Flyer)

Click the Upload File button

As soon as you attach a file, it should appear in a list at the top of the page. You may also remove/delete an attached file by clicking on the ‘Remove’ button provided alongside each file-name.

Reviewing/Submitting Your Announcement

At this point, your announcement has been saved but not yet submitted. You will be able to review your announcement and select from one of three options:

If you are ready to submit your announcement for distribution, click the ‘Submit Announcement’ button. Note: announcements must be submitted by noon of the previous business day. Please keep in mind that announcements submitted after noon on Friday will not be reviewed/approved until Monday morning.

If you need to make changes to your announcement, click the ‘Edit Announcement Again’ button.

If you wish to edit your announcement at a later time, click the ‘Exit (Submit Later)’ button. You will be redirected back to the On the Docket Homepage and will see your announcement listed under ‘Edit Saved Announcements’

Once you submit your announcement, you will receive an email confirmation.

Understanding the On the Docket Homepage

In addition to being able to submit a new announcement, you will also see announcements that you have already created on your On the Docket homepage. These announcements are grouped into 2 main categories:

Saved Announcements: These consist of announcements that you have created but not yet submitted for distribution. You may view, edit, submit or delete these announcements. Announcements must be submitted by noon of the previous business day. Please keep in mind that announcements submitted after noon on Friday will not be reviewed/approved until Monday morning.

Submitted Announcements:These are announcements that you have submitted for distribution. There are 4 subcategories:

In Distribution: These are announcements that have been approved and are currently in queue for distribution (Note: faculty/staff announcements are automatically approved.) The column ‘For Distribution On’, lists all the dates/times that deliveries have been scheduled for. Deliveries that have already been made are shown in gray and are also listed under the Distributed subcategory. If a notice has not been sent out yet, you have the ability to delete it. If it has been delivered at least once before, you have the option to Cancel Further Delivery. If you are a faculty/staff member, you will also have the option to edit announcements that are in distribution. However, if the announcement has been delivered at least once, you will not be able to remove past delivery dates or any attached files.

Pending Approval: Announcements submitted by students must be approved by an administrator prior to distribution.

Distributed: These consist of announcements that have been delivered at least once. Depending on whether these announcements have finished their delivery cycle, or are still in distribution, you may either cancel further delivery or edit for resubmission.

Not Distributed: These are the announcements that were never distributed, as they may not have been approved by an administrator. You may delete or edit for resubmission.

Editing an Announcement for Resubmission

This action can be performed on announcements whose delivery dates have all expired. In this case, such announcements can be resubmitted. This essentially means that the notice can be duplicated in all respects, except for the delivery dates. Click the ‘Edit for Resubmission’ link to edit your announcement. Make any necessary changes and select new delivery dates/times.

Below is an example of the form that will appear when you choose to edit an older announcement for resubmission.

When you are done editing the announcement details, you will have the option to include any attached files that were related your original announcement by clicking the ‘Attach Files Related to this Announcement’ button at the bottom of the page. This will open the File Attachment page where you will be provided with an option to copy the original files to your new notice. To copy the original files, click the ‘Copy Files for Current Announcement’ button. Else, click the ‘Do Not Copy Files’ button. You may also attach new files as well.

When you are finished, click the ‘Done Attaching Files (Review Announcement)’ button, which will allow you to review and submit your notice.

Deleting/Cancelling an Announcement

You may delete a notice or cancel all further delivery depending on the sent status of your announcement. Please note the following:

If your announcement has never been delivered, you may delete the announcement entirely.

If an announcement is in distribution and has been delivered at least once, you may cancel further delivery of the announcement.

If an announcement has been delivered on all scheduled dates, you may neither delete nor cancel the announcement (However, you may edit it for resubmission)

On choosing to delete an announcement, you will be asked to confirm your action. When you confirm the delete operation, the announcement will be completely removed and you will no longer have access to it.